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GreatAmerica Financial Services Corp. has announced that it surpassed the $2 billion mark in assets and concurrently reached its 25th year of uninterrupted organic growth. The two milestones are the latest installment of the journey of a young immigrant's dream to build a company that would be the best in its field.

"Tony [Golobic] changed the paradigm in the leasing business," said Carol Mitschke, owner, Frontier Business Products (one of the first GreatAmerica customers). "He understood that he needed to partner with the office equipment dealer on the financing piece and be invested together to make sure customers were happy and stayed with their dealer."

As GreatAmerica grew, it applied its dealer-centric approach to other industries, averaging annual double-digit asset growth since its inception. GreatAmerica also drew on the knowledge base of its customers to build tools and systems to help them grow. FleetView, PathShare, SnappShot, DocEase and Collabrance are just a few of the GreatAmerica non-financing initiatives created to help build the businesses of their channel partners.

"Our longevity and success has had everything to do with the bond between our loyal partners and our exceptional employees," said Tony Golobic, chairman and CEO, GreatAmerica. "We've been fortunate to have strategies in place that drive us to constantly re-evaluate where we are in providing the best value-add services for our customers. Their needs have changed over the years and we continue to evolve to create a frictionless platform to help them become more successful and differentiate."

At the GreatAmerica Annual Awards event this summer, employees celebrated the 25th anniversary and saw, for the first time, the GreatAmerica origin story.

"There are a lot of elements in our origin story that are woven into our culture," said Jennie Fisher, senior vice president and general manager, Office Equipment Group, and the third person hired at GreatAmerica. "The 'why' of what we are doing becomes very clear, especially after seeing how the foundation stones have been laid. Most, if not nearly all, of our 525 employees make that connection and strive to live up to our 'Hard Work. Integrity. Excellence.' motto."